


Circles

by fortheloveoflestrade



Category: Malice In Wonderland
Genre: F/M, SHIP IT LIKE FEDEX, This movie is so fetch, alice and whitey, finally somewhere to put these, one of my favorite versions tbh, starting the fandom!, whitey is bueno, whooooo, yuuussssss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveoflestrade/pseuds/fortheloveoflestrade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oneshots focusing on the film Malice In Wonderland (starring Maggie Grace).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For Your Head

“Get ready for the land that time forgot.”

In his thick, British dialect, the t on the end of ‘forgot’ is silent.

But she hardly notices, dazed as she is. “This isn’t right,” she mumbles.

Just barely did she feel his eyes on her in the mirror. “Yank,” he says with the slightest bit of contempt. “Los-fucking-Angeles, this is not.”

Like she could care. God, her head is spinning, splitting, collapsing.

“Wh-where are you taking me?” She looks out the window, and the motion of the vehicle makes her stomach turn.

“Home. Eventually.”

_Home?_

“But the party first. Harry’s.”

She sighs, squinting against the light of the tunnel.

She tries to remember…but can’t. Nothing.

“What’s your name?” For a moment, she thinks she hears something like true interest in his voice.

“My name?” There’s a long pause, and he watches her shake her head and stare off at the back of his seat. “I can’t remember.”

“You’ve got a bang on the ‘ead. Yeah, that amne- amen- No, what is it, it’s…anemes- Lost your fucking memory.”

God, he swears a lot.

He looks down, and she hears the slight rattling of something against glass. “For your knees.”

More rattling. “For your nerves. For your breath.” His ‘th’ sounds like an ‘f’.

His hand lifts with something, and he mumbles to himself. “What’s this?” He lifts it in front of his face, shakes it around a little bit, and tosses it back at her.

She jumps as he did, and he says something she doesn’t catch.

The bottle looks like a prescription, but it doesn’t have anything on it except ‘FOR YOUR HEAD’ in large, bold print. She reads it aloud.

“Now, listen to me.”

She does.

“I want you to pop one of ‘em down your rabbit ‘ole. It’ll knock you out at first, but afterwards…”

She unscrews the cap, sliding one of the curious-looking pills into her fingers.

“…you are gonna be as sharp as _shit_.” He makes sure he hits the ‘t’ this time, glancing back at her in the mirror.

She rolls the capsule back and forth in her hand, hesitant.

“Trust me.” Then after, he adds almost hastily, “I’m a doctor.”

Next thing she knows, the pills in her mouth and down her throat—easier than she expected. There’s a sugary-sweet coating on the outside that helps it along.

“I do prescriptions. People tell me what they need, and I nick it.”

It takes her a minute to digest the full meaning of his words, and even then everything is still a bit fuzzy.

She shifts down into the seat, drowsy. “Thank you,” she mumbles.

As she’s falling asleep, she can hear him muttering to himself.

_“Got to get me there.”_

_“I’m late.”_

_“Harry Hunt.”_

_“Big boss.”_

_“Just got outta jail.”_

_“Big party.”_

_“Best present ever.”_

_“Pure and uncut.”_

_“Special import.”_

_“Gotta get me that Thai for Harry.”_

“Tie?” she whispers before the drug finally knocks her out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot express in words the love I feel for this movie. This isn’t anything except my in-depth look at the first car scene between Alice and Whitey. More to come.


	2. Watches

“Now I want you to give me one minute, just one minute’s quiet,” he’s running at her as he walks over from the window. “Just one minute: that’s sixty seconds, yeah? Shh.”

He sits. Their legs are right against each other, the edge of the mattress sinking under their weight. His hand is out in front of him, like he stopped mid-thought. He slowly brings his finger to his lips, still asking her to be quiet without even looking at her.

She smoothes back her ‘new’ hair, sighs, and drops her cheek to his shoulder.

A few seconds pass.

“Alice.”

She can hear him exhale softly.

“Alice, Alice, _Alice_ ,” she repeats quietly. “I don’t know why I thought I had a more unusual name like Tabitha or Elecktra or…”

He sighs—a little louder, now—and stands. “I said sixty not _six_.” He’s back at the window, peeking out of the side of the curtain.

“You’re a slave to time.”

“I’m a slave to nothin’,” he shoots back quickly.

“You wear two watches. They’re your shackles.”

He looks over at her.

“You should free yourself,” she says, a little kinder.

He looks away after a moment, and she does, too. She picks up the Dodgson Industries card on the bed beside her.

“He’s willing to pay ten million for me.”

Whitey looks over.

“Must love me.”

He tenses his back, looks out. “Love doesn’t come into it. This is business.”

She considers it, but shakes her head. “You don’t know my father—”

“And you do?”

She looks down at the card again.

He changes the subject. “Gotta get us out, or they’ll be cruisin’ every road, waitin’ for us.”

“You do stand out in your London cab,” she jabs.

He looks over, “You’re not as mental as you act.”

She smiles. He doesn’t.

She scoffs, looks off into the room.

“Couple of easy steals down there, I’m gonna go and check ‘em out,” he says, walking over towards the door. But he stops, turns around.

“Here,” he says, undoing the gold watch on his right wrist. He stands in front of her. “If these are shackles, then we’re shackled together.”

He works on securing it to her left wrist. “You and me,” he says.

She looks up at him. “Me and you,” she murmurs.

Still working on the latch, he continues, “I’ll be five minutes, ten minutes tops. You can time me.” He grabs the room key. “Then I’m taking you back.”

She rubs at the new weight on her arm. “Because of the reward money.” It’s not quite a question—more of a guess.

“‘Cause that’s what I promised.” The door swings open, and he’s half out of it what he adds, “I’m locking you in.”

She glances at the watch, then back at the door, the chain swinging on the frame beside it.

\---

After he leaves, she turns on the TV. It spouts chirping baby birds and Spanish narration at her while she ties back her hair.

She changes the channel. The chirping and narration become a man’s voice, and the murmurs and white noise of a press conference.

The man on screen is about mid-sentence, “ _…how grateful we are to the British police, and their unstinting efforts in trying to trace our daughter and to bring her kidnappers to justice._ ”

He nods at reporters, smiles at cameras. This is not a man whose only daughter is missing; this is the head of a major conglomerate corporation making a statement to the media. She would never admit, but Whitey might’ve been right. She couldn’t remember her father, let alone his motivations or attachments to her.

“ _I’m afraid I cannot comment for obvious reasons._ ”

“What do I remember?” Alice asks herself out loud.

“ _Dodgson Industries is putting up a ten million dollar reward for any information leading to the safe return of our daughter._ ”

As she falls back onto the silk pillows and sheets, she thinks about how it sounds like the ‘our’ isn’t her parents, but the entirety of Dodgson Industries.

“ _Ten million dollar reward,_ ” he repeats.

She slides a pill into her mouth, ‘for her head’.

“ _Please, you must understand…that this is a very distressing time, for Mrs. Dodgson and myself. And a difficult time for Dodgson Industries._ ” She doesn’t hear much after that, doesn’t try.

“Remember,” she whispers. And when the pill knocks her out, she does.

\---

He’s made it down to the parking lot when he decides to turn back. He lies to himself, telling himself that he had a gut-feeling that something was about to happen.

Really, he’s just unsure about leaving her alone in that room.

So he turns around.

When he gets there, she’s on the bed. Asleep.

He finds the pill bottle near the corner, down by her feet.

“Shit,” he whispers. The television blares behind him, and he turns it off.

She’s right in the center of the mattress, lying perfectly straight. He spots the red couch several feet away, eyeing its acceptability.

When he lies back, he realizes it’s a bit short, but it’s not too uncomfortable that he can’t steal a quick nap.

He’s out when his eyes slide shut.

\---

She wakes slowly. Whatever those pills do to her, they make her feel like she needs a long soak in the tub just to think straight. She briefly considers such, until the sight of Whitey stretched across the red loveseat on the other side of the room catches her attention.

His hat is tilted down the bridge of his nose, and his feet dangle over the edge of the short couch.

She stands, taking a second to let the head rush clear, and then walks over. Kneeling beside, she toys with the watch around her wrist. Her head falls against the arm, only a few inches from his. She lets go a long breath out of her nose and in spite of herself, whispers, “Alice.”

At first, she thinks he’s still out, but he sighs and murmurs, “Is ‘quiet’ even in your vocabulary?”

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“Whatever, love,” he says, straightening his back and moving his hat over the entirety of his face. “How was your trip?”

She takes a minute to think about this. “Foggy.”

He exhales. “They’ll do that to ‘ya.” 

“And yours?” she responds.

“Had to call it off,” he mutters, “Something felt off. So I came back to kill a few minutes.”

“No car?”

He shakes his head, and the hat shifts slightly. “No car. Yet. I’ll try again when the coast is clear.”

She lifts the hat, dropping it to the carpet beside her. “What do mean, something felt ‘off’?”

He turns, finding her eyes, and they both realize suddenly how close they are. “I don’t know, I just had a bad feeling about it. Can we drop it?”

She turns away. “I suppose.”

They’re both quiet for a long time. So long, she thinks he’s fallen asleep again.

“Whitey?”

He clears his throat. “Yeah?”

“Can we stay here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do we have to go?”

He turns to look at her again, but she doesn’t look at him. His eyes search her, and he sees that something in her—what, he doesn’t know, and he’s pretty sure she doesn’t either—doesn’t want to go home. And going to the party means going home, eventually.

But something else there reminds him of something she said to him earlier that night.

_“I know I was supposed to do something…important.”_

“No, darling,” he says finally, “we can stay long as you like.”

\---

“You want to take a fucking bath?” he spits at her.

“Yes,” she says.

He looks at her a moment, completely at a loss.

She widens her eyes like, ‘So?’

“Fine, whatever.”

She nods and walks away, disappearing into the bathroom and locking the door behind her with a click.

He sighs, and sits on the end of the bed. He’s about to turn on the television when he hears it, the sound of little plastic capsules against glass.

“FOR-YOUR-HEAD,” he mutters, annoyed.

Only then does it hit him what she’s about to do.

“Alice!” he growls, suddenly banging on the door between them. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?” he hears.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” he says sarcastically, “You’re going to make yourself unconscious while floating in a tub of water. How does that sound to you?”

“Relaxing,” he hears, and about tears the doorknob out of the wood.

“Don’t be stupid, Alice, you could drown.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“And if something happens? The door is locked.”

“I’m sure you could break it down if you really wanted to.”

“Come on, why are you doing this?”

The door swings open suddenly, and she peeks out the side. “Why am I doing this?” she asks angrily. “I’m trying to get my memory—my fucking life back!”

It’s the first time he’s heard her swear all night, and it’s both harsh and completely unfitting.

But he likes it, anyway.

“By possibly putting it in danger? Yeah, real smart idea.”

It’s then he figures out why she hiding behind the door—because she’s in nothing but a towel. He can see her barely concealed body in the mirror behind her, and he fights himself to look away.

A few strands of hair fall loose from her makeshift hair-tie, which is now holding the majority of her hair up and away from her neck. 

He can hear the tub filling in the background and she starts to say something more, but her words come out slurred and incomprehensible.

Then she’s falling, landing hard on the tacky linoleum of the bathroom.

“Fuck,” he says, trying and failing to catch her.

He manages to lift her from the floor, careful of her minimal coverage, and lays her back down on the bed. He tosses one of the covers over her, just to be safe.

And then, after a trip to turn off the flow of water in the tub, he makes his way back to the loveseat. But he will not sleep this time, only wait.

\---

He’s found a spot to stare at on the carpet below and counted to 1274 when he hears her mutter, “What happened?”

He looks up, and the cover’s been pushed away, she’s still only in her towel. She rubs her head, likely where she hit the floor.

“You passed out.”

“Oh,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says. “You okay?”

“Not really,” she sighs, “but I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” he says quietly. “You should get dressed; I’m going to look for a car. Then we’re skipping the party and taking you home.”

“Really?” she asks, and he doesn’t know how she can sound both relieved and unhappy at the same time.

“Really.”

“Thank you.”

He stands, walks towards the door. He stops in front of it, just like before. “No problem, sweetheart.”

And then he’s gone. Again.

\---

While in the parking lot, he’s overly-cautious and careful. So much so that he’s practically paranoid.

He manages to get an obnoxious yellow thing open, and he rips out the bottom of the panel to let loose the wires. He doesn’t want to start it quite yet, but it’ll be faster for him when they’re ready.

Looking over his shoulder every few seconds, he heads back to the room.

\---

There’s a knock at the door. “You ready?” she hears.

“Almost. Come on in.”

He opens the door and she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on her shoe. He sits down beside her.

“Sorry about the party,” she grunts, pulling on the other shoe.

“It’s nothin’,” he says, “I was liable to lose my head, anyway.”

She still doesn’t understand, but doesn’t ask, either.

“What about your gift? Did you ever track it down?”

“Eh, sort of. It’s not important.”

“That’s not true,” she argues. 

“Whatever,” he says, trying to drop it. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you sure we have to? I mean, they could still be out there waiting for us.”

“Once I get you home, you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“What about you?”

He turns. “What about me?”

“What’ll happen to you, after I go home?”

“Back to life, I reckon. Back to how it was before you ran in front of my cab.” He nudges her playfully.

“Shut up,” she scoffs. “It’s not like I did it on purpose, okay? I was running from—” she stops herself, unsure of how to finish the thought.

“From who?”

“I…I don’t know.” She drops her head into her hands. “I thought those pills were helping, but all they’ve done is make me feel a little bit sick.”

He places a gentle hand on her back, and she surprises him by arching into his touch just slightly.

“Alice,” he sighs.

“You know,” she says, “if you take me back, then they’ll probably take down the reward money.” She looks up at him. “Maybe if we wait a little while longer—”

He cuts her off by leaning in and placing his lips on hers. The kiss is sudden, and short.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, still in close.

“Don’t be,” she breathes, before kissing him back.

\---

To her, he is surprising gentle. To him, she isn’t as gentle as he expected.

Later—after—she lies next to him, both of them wrapped in the shitty motel sheets. She listens as he dozes, his grip on her still firm. She smiles in her exhaustion.  
Neither is left wearing anything but their watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this scene to go much differently, so I made it so. Thoughts? Has anyone even seen this movie?


End file.
